Losers

It is sad, but somehow I knew that there would be no escaping the  division over Iraq as the world community attempts to present a united front in delivering relief to the victims of the Asian Tsunami disaster.

I had little doubt that headlines like these would be wheeled out in the days and weeks following the tragic events;

• "America has happily spent more than $US200 billion destroying Iraq, imgaine if those funds had gone towards the poorest nations in Asia."
• "Instead of spending more than $500 million on detention  centres, why couldn't the Howard Government have spent that money helping Asia's poorest countries?"
• "If John Howard wants to prove he's moved on from those Asian immigation comments in the 1980s he should allow tens of thousands of homeless victims of the tsunamis to come to Australia and start a new  life."

And of course letter writers around the country didn’t let me down!

I wouldn’t normally trod down this track, but after scanning around some of the online forums, I want to expose some of these “losers”;  People like Caiti Wilson, Williamstown who wrote to the Age:

“Thousands of Australians remain stranded in tsunami-devastated areas and where is the prime of our defence capability? It is stretched to the limit in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries largely at the behest of the United States.  Australians and our Asian neighbours lie dead and injured while our limited resources are being used elsewhere. This speaks volumes about the priorities of this country in deploying scarce resources overseas to pursue President Bush's interests.”

Moron.

Chris Burgess is no better (also from the Age);

”America has offered, at least as a start, a paltry $15 million to victims of tsunami-ravaged Asia, yet it is estimated to spend around $450 billion annually on military expenditure. Australia has offered a mere $10 million, yet spent around $21 billion on defence in 2003.

"When will governments learn it is more cost-effective (if nothing else) to spend money on helping, rather than endangering life?”

Nor is Gordon Drennan, (in the Sydney Morning Herald);

“Almost 3000 people died as a results of events in the United States on September 11, 2001, and our Government was willing to spend billions to do something about it - even go to war, and not ask any embarrassing questions about the evidence for or legality of doing so.

"Tens of thousands of Asians die and all our Government can spare to help them is $10 million.

"I guess it makes sense. We all know an American's life is worth millions but Asians' lives are worth only a few hundred. I'm surprised there's even a body count. Dead Iraqis don't get counted.”

Severino Milazzo continues the parade of stupidity here:

'It would be a tangible mark of the true greatness of the man were the Prime Minister to devote as many resources to this overwhelming disaster as he has to the Iraqi disaster and its aftermath." 

Richard Sallie on the bandwagon in  The Australian;

“THOUSANDS of lives snuffed out in the time it took the rest of us to draw a dozen breaths, and upward of a million injured, homeless, hopeless and bereaved. The US Government's response? Aid the cash value of ordnance they dropped on Iraq during the first two minutes of "shock and awe" or a few days' worth of TV ads pumped out during "schlock and bore" – their presidential election campaign. Surely a vulgar demonstration of the Bush administration's priorities, their commitment to global citizenry and the value they place on foreign human life.”

Marjo Miller,(from Kihei, USA on BBC Have Your Say) also piped in with:

"We had higher surf than usual here on Maui. However, I would like to see the tax dollars we spend on an illegal war in Iraq diverted to help victims of a force utterly out of their control. As world citizens, this is our first priority.”

But there were some “winners”, like David Blackburn in the smh;

"I wonder if multimillionaire Osama bin Laden will donate anything to help his fellow Muslims in their terrible distress caused by the tsunami”

And John Colebatch (also from the smh);

"Quick. Hurry Osama. Before you lose the initiative. Spend some of your millions. Send some of your obscene followers. Get in and help those suffering so much from the tsunami before the US-led Forces of Evil send in their tents, doctors, nurses and clean water.

"Oh! Too late, they've beaten you again. Next time, perhaps…”

Why do I point these sad, bitter, losers of the left, out? Because they deserve to be exposed. It is sad, but typical that some of the incredibly ruthless "Left" don't think twice about exploiting victims of a tragedy to use as a human platform for their anti-American, or anti-Iraqi war ideology.  It might be cynical of me to suggest this, but I can't help but feeling as though this tragedy is just the thing some devoted Bush and Howard haters have been longing for ever since their candidates failed to topple the objects of their hatred at the ballot boxes earlier in the year.

It seems that it is only when the dead come in handy and can be used to clobber America do these so-called bleeding hearts come out of the woodwork. Otherwise these victims are ignored.

Why is it that no one cared about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi victims of failed U.N. sanctions before the war? Now the Iraqi dead are like gold to these self-righteous morons, and the victims of the tsunami catastrophe seem to be developing a similar currency.

Have a look at this and wake up!  The devestation in South East Asia has nothing to do with Iraq.  Nor America.  Nor either is it about George Bush, or John Howard.   This is about the families of the 80000 people dead.  This is about uniting to help in both rapid emergency relief missions, as well as understanding that we have an important role to play in the long-term reconsstruction of the region.  It presents us with the opportunity to be a friend.

Get over yourselves, you pathetic, bitter bunch of losers.

Comments

[Hu DongQing]

If someone has a coment about values, it doesn't mean they are attachking 'half' the political spectrum. Only a pathetically ideologically obsessed person would assume that that is what people are like.

Incidently, out of all the blogs I've read, the three which talk about the 'left' and the 'right' most are you, Tim Blair and The View From the Right. You're so ideologically driven that you can't even see when people agree with you. Its sad.

[shannon]

Thanks for visiting and making comment, Hu. Yep, I am unashamedly from the right end of the spectrum. Despite the strong tone in my post, I amd not "ideologically obsessed", I don't people as being either of the "left" or "right". Although I can see how that opinion can be drawn from many of my posts in the last few months....

My point in posting these letters was to demonstrate how some folks out there are attempting to use this tradegy to pedal their views on John Howard, George Bush, and the war in Iraq. That is distastful and wrong.

I was as stunned as anybody to think that over 100 000 people can be killed by massive waves of water. And I agree that much money needs to and must be spent. And I applaud the way in which the global community (including Big Business, both here in Australian and abroad) is getting behind the mission to raise relief funds, and send resources to the region.

No disagreement of values there. But we also must realise that using the dead to justify an arguement for less military spending (or similar) is distasteful. There is absolutely no need to make comparisons between who has the deepest wallets, or who spends more on aid, who sends more doctors, who sends more resources. Nor is there a need to make a comparison with the war in Iraq.

I was shocked and disappointed to read that some people had so quickly (like the day after the tsunami!)and so readily jumped in with making such thougtless comments and suggestions